Gingrich On Chicago Video: If Four Whites Did This To A Black Man, There Would Be No Hate Crime Debate

Christine pounced on the disturbing news coming out of Chicago, where four black individuals kidnapped, bound, and tortured a white man, while shouting, “fuck Donald Trump” and “fuck white people.” All four assailants have been arrested and charged with executing a hate crime. The Wall Street Journaladded that the attackers are also facing charges for kidnapping, aggravated unlawful restraint and battery and burglary. They stole a car that was used to abduct the victim and they broke into a house to commit this act. The victim also has special needs. Yet, it took 24-hours to classify this atrocious act as a hate crime. This is what the Chicago Police initially had to say about the incident and the attackers (via Daily Caller):

When asked by a reporter why the suspects made anti-white and anti-Trump comments and whether that justifies investigating the horrifying incident as a hate crime, Chicago Police Department Commander Kevin Duffin said, “Kids make stupid decisions — I shouldn’t call them kids, they’re legally adults. But they’re young adults and they make stupid decisions.”

He added, “That will certainly be part of whether or not we determine this a hate crime or whether or not this is stupid ranting and raving.”

Here’s what Democratic strategist Symone Sanders had to say on CNN (via Mediaite):

After calling it “sickening,” Sanders gave the following observation: “But I’m gonna say something that’s probably not very popular — we cannot callously go about classifying things as a hate crime.”

After wondering if it were hate for Trump or white people, she expanded on he point. “If we start going around and anytime someone says or does something egregious or bad and sickening in sense,” she noted. “In connection with the president-elect Donald Trump or even President Obama for that matter because of their political leanings, that’s slippery territory. That is not a hate crime.”

[…]

If Sanders seems familiar, it’s probably because you remember her mockingly exclaiming “Oh my goodness, poor white people” during an on-air conversation about a Trump supporter beaten by a mob. She’s also said the Democratic Party doesn’t “need white people leading” it right now and the election of Trump put “white supremacy into the White House.”

CNN’s Don Lemon added that maybe this attack wasn’t evil, but a byproduct of “bad home training.” We don’t know if the victim voted for Donald J. Trump. What we do know now is that this was a hate crime due to the racial slurs. Still, we had the Left trying to say otherwise, though it’s these incidents where you just know if the roles were switched—the Left will be going apoplectic. Offering warnings of how this is a harbinger for all kinds of awful for LGBT Americans, people of color, and the poor. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich aptly noted that a) the Left would be infuriated if four whites did this to a black man; and b) it wouldn’t take us a day to figure out that this was a hate crime (via The Hill):

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Thursday warned that the U.S. was "at the edge of a terrible period" after a Facebook Live video surfaced in which a disabled white Chicago teen is seen being tortured amid chants of "f--- Donald Trump."

"If this had been done to an African-American by four whites, every liberal in the country would be outraged and there would be no question that it is a hate crime," Gingrich said in an interview on "Fox & Friends."

"We are right at the edge of a terrible period — which I know President-elect Donald Trump wants to avoid — of having a deep bitter division in the communities in a way that makes America very hard to govern."

Ironically, that’s what the Left loves to do, splitting women, blacks, Asians, men, LGBT Americans, and other communities in separate groups, figuring which ones form a winning coalition to win elections and push a hyper-left wing agenda. Cookie cutter thy name is identity politics.

Yet, back to this horrific crime, even today MSNBC’s Ali Velshi interviewed NBC News’ Ron Mott, where the latter sort of questioned whether the attackers actions were criminal:

Well, you look at it on the surface and you think kids can make some really poor decisions from time to time,” Mott answered.

But when you add in the criminal element here, the fact that they stole someone’s vehicle, the fact that they apparently broke into a house where this alleged attack took place, the fact that they, you know, physically harmed this young person, held him against his will and then apparently, you know, texted the parents demanding some sort of monetary exchange to send him home.”

“It goes beyond just stupid decisions by kids,” he added. “But because they made so many errors, if they were truly trying to be criminal, to obviously broadcast your crime is not a smart thing to do.”

First of all, “alleged attack?” We’re trying to parse that fact. It happened. It’s been broadcast live on Facebook. We can’t even agree on that? This attack was heinous, it was a hate crime, and it should be widely condemned as such. The politics here really shouldn’t matter since we have no clue whether the special needs victim voted for Trump, or even voted at all. What matters are the racial slurs that were hurled against him while being tortured because he was white—and because he was white, he has to be pro-Trump. If that’s the reasoning behind this attack, that’s pretty much the textbook definition of a hate crime. Yet, stepping back from the hate crime aspect of it. These people kidnapped a mentally disabled person and tortured him. That alone is grotesque, but because alas, everything is political now, especially with the Left.